By jingo this is a good book. :) I found Terry’s previous book a little tired, but he is back in fine form with this volume in the Discworld saga. If you don’t know the joys of the Disc it is a little hard to explain. Humour is a particularly individual characteristic and does not subject well to critical appraisal. If you don’t find it funny the first time no amount of explanation or analysis is going to make it funny, so I’ll pretty much restrict this review to an overview of the novel.

The main focus is Commander Vimes and the City Watch. The legendary island of Leshp has suddenly sprung up out of the ocean. Midway between Klatch and Ankh-Morpork. Needless to say both countries claim it is theirs. Vimes is charged with keeping the peace and goes about trying to do that even though both sides are obviously spoling for a war.

All your favourite Watch characters are there, Carrot the six foot dwarf, Angua, his lady love and pet. Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs. Cheery Littlebottom and Detritus the troll.

The Patrician is one step ahead of everyone, as usual. And Leonard of Quirm the eccentric genius invents a whole lot of things.

There is a conspiracy, but who is conspiring to do what I’ll leave you to find out in the book.

The wizards of Unseen University put in a guest appearence for the parade but magic and wizards are not a big feature of the book.

That’s really about all I can say without spoiling the plot or some of the humour. If you’ve read and enjoyed earlier books in the Discworld series then you should love this one. It’s Pratchett at his best.